


overhead the skies are clear

by calerine



Series: Nowhere Boys character studies [2]
Category: Nowhere Boys (TV)
Genre: M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-03
Updated: 2014-02-03
Packaged: 2018-01-11 01:45:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1167137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calerine/pseuds/calerine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Sam Conte character study.</p>
            </blockquote>





	overhead the skies are clear

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted [here](http://badgels.tumblr.com/post/69567937247/overhead-the-skies-are-clear-nowhere-boys-sam).

 

Sam grows up on the shoulders of men and with the world in the palms of his hands. His parents show him off with joy shining from his mother’s face, two weeks after they bring him back from the hospital while he is still red-faced and swollen from coming into the world. His brothers take turns carrying him, swathes of blankets unravelling as they pass him from arm to arm (and kiss his forehead when they think no one is looking.)

His first girlfriend pecks his cheek and gives him a flower, freshly plucked from their kindergarten’s hedge. It is bright yellow with tiny specks of powder spilling into the palm of his hand, he places it in his hair and doesn’t care when the other boys laugh. The next day, they all have flowers in their hair and Sam has already forgotten all about it, already back to scraping his knees falling off his tiny skateboard.

He learns how to ask for things, how to say _please_ as if he really means it when all he is thinking about is a new game console, not his brothers’ matching scowls, their complaints of _it’s so unfair_. It’s so easy to make everyone fall in love with him, a widening of eyes, a trick with his board and he has them eating out of his hands. Sam knows, it’s a superpower to make his teachers adore him, and when they don’t, his parents march into school and everything is better again.

In Year 9, he falls in love with the way a girl smiles. She has hair that shines golden in the sun and every time he looks at her, he has to stop his stomach from flip-flopping all its way up to his throat and jumping out of his mouth. She kisses him so sweetly, sits with him for hours by the river, drinking up all the things he says and he could conquer nations from the way she looks at him, eyes soft and the corner of her lips like standing on a mountain peak. She comes to every one of his showcases, cheers until her voice is hoarse but when her wandering hands touch under his shirt, Sam has to push her away. Make his excuses and say _hey you know what, let’s watch a film tonight._ She never pushes back.

It sits as a crow on his shoulders, blocks the sun from his skin. He never touches Mia in the ways the other boys touch their girlfriends, never jerks off in the dead of the night and only lies so still when his brothers do, their soft gasps and muffled moans conducting through the thin walls separating their rooms. He never _wants_ in a way that everyone else seems to, and when Mia pulls his hand to cup her breast, his _no!_ chokes him on its way out. He kisses her and says quietly _I don’t know why, don’t tell anyone please._ She kisses him back and pulls his head into her lap, murmuring _it’s okay, you’re okay_ until he falls asleep.

The first time someone shouts at him, it’s Jake and he’s so angry that even Felix is quiet. Jake screams _you selfish fool_ and the words wash through Sam like a dream, such disconnect rattling through his bones. He meets Jake’s eyes and doesn’t say anything, walks until the river shimmers before him and he is so completely numb. These days, it’s hard to think so Sam hasn’t for such a long time. He doesn’t think about his family, his parents or his brothers or all the people who used to love him so well all now belonging to another boy with his name and a few months off his age. Another boy who doesn’t flinch when his girlfriend slips her palms onto his belt buckle, and another boy who was never replaced.

The river water is cool around Sam’s knuckles and he can almost imagine the texture of wood under his fingertips, the cut of splinters in the shape of MG ♡ SC. Jake joins him after a while.

“Sorry, about just now.” He says, staring straight out towards the opposite bank.

“You’re right, though.” The words taste unfamiliar on Sam’s tongue. “I’ve never - I don’t - It’s difficult. I’m sorry, too” is what he settles on. It makes Jake turn to look at him then, squinting a little at the sun behind Sam’s head.

“You’ll get the hang of it. Some of us. We just had to grow up faster is all.”

A fish swims gingerly between Sam’s toes, darting away when he wriggles them.

“You think?” Sam thinks about Felix and Andy and all their secrets, all those hidden pockets of darkness in their lives that they’d never show to the world until he’s touched the backs of their necks and held them through bad days. 

He used to look at Jake and see the captain of the football team. Now all he can think about is his downcast eyes every time after he’s talked to his mother and dropped so many hints that the floor could be littered with pennies. This morning from his sleeping bag, Sam had watched him kiss Andy in their makeshift dining corner, how their eyelashes had touched with the sunlight on their skin and Jake chuckled afterwards, breathless and so happy.

“I’m sure.” Jake says and squeezes Sam’s hand.

They have never pushed.

*


End file.
